Streamlining your business processes in 2017

10 apps to streamline your business in 2017

Your time is a valuable resource therefore taking advantage of time-saving apps for recurring processes can help focus your attention on growing your business and working towards broader objectives and long term company goals.

As a web design agency in Belfast we are always open to integrating new digital tools which can save the agency time and allow the team to focus on our most important tasks for clients.

The 3 key questions we ask at Green17 Creative are:

Have we done the same thing more than 3 times?

Can this be automated in any way?

Will it save the business more time and money in the long run?

There are a mind-boggling number of online tools to help all types of businesses but we have deliberately kept our recommended selection as general as possible so there should hopefully be something here for everyone.

1. Xero

The first recommendation may not be particularly exciting, however, an easy accounting process is something we all want as SMEs. Xero has done an exceptional job at this with automated bank feeds and staff salaries as well as simple Euro/GBP transactions which is great for cross-border trading in the island of Ireland. With Xero, its quick and easy to log in and view real-time activity for better and up-to-date decision making. It also offers a 30 day free trial to let you explore its features first-hand.

2. LastPass

This is also high on the list as it’s something that every company needs to invest in to avoid becoming compromised in some way. Green17 Creative regularly see companies using weak security due to lack of education around the risk this poses, and it’s something we’re passionate about teaching. Many companies also use one password for multiple accounts which means if they get hacked through a phishing email or website they are compromising lots of accounts instead of just one.

LastPass is a free app which saves all passwords in one place, auto-filling these when you visit each website. It also allows for effective team management whereby different user groups have limited access to passwords e.g. Directors only have access to passwords for finance sites etc. Auto-filled passwords are also hidden meaning that temporary staff or students can log in using LastPass but can never see the password itself.

3. Google Apps

These tools are invaluable to our agency and save time for us on an everyday basis. Calendar makes it to share schedules via multiple calendars for different staff or projects, which can all sync across multiple devices. Google Docs and Sheets also allow us to quickly share and collaborate on documents or reports which update automatically, saving time having to email documents back and forth, working and saving versions independently of one another.

4. TimeTastic

This a great little tool that lets you quickly manage staff holidays. In the early days of business, we had the time-consuming task of working out holidays and letting staff view these. Timetastic allows staff to see when others have booked time off which means they can understand if their request is likely to impact their team workload. We also have this integrated with Slack (our online chat tool) which provides notifications when someone is out-of-office.

5. Active Collab

We rely heavily on this project management tool which lets us assign tasks and track progress on a per client and per project basis. Clients can also log in for live updates on project process and or receive email notifications from the system to update them. This app is our most important for streamlining the business and allows us as a micro-business to compete with larger agencies. As with all tools though, it’s only as good as the data that goes into it, but Active Collab makes it easy for everyone to add tasks, track time using a convenient timer tool and communicate with the whole project team for better project management.

6. Trello

Another task list tool which works really well for us. We show Trello on a big screen in our web design studio that we can all glance at for a quick top level overview of upcoming deadlines. There are some companies that use this as their single project management tool and this is possible, however, we use it to help us focus on the top-level parts of projects and leave the finer details to the Active Collab tool.

7. Slack

Even in small studios like ours, Slack is a very useful tool which saves time for everyone. This communication tool allows team members to send quick questions, links to information or resources, documents and more to one another internally without using email, which we reserve for external communication with clients. Slack also supports a lot of third-part integration e.g. TimeTastic and Google Calendars, which updates the team every morning from one handy app.

8. Buffer

Social media scheduling is undoubtedly a time-saving process for all businesses using these platforms, and there are many tools on the market for this. Our favourite at Green17 is Buffer which lets you schedule, publish and analyse posts to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and Pinterest in one place. It also has a convenient mobile app for when you’re on the go!

9. Pinterest

You might think this is just for recipes, home décor and wedding planning, but Pinterest is a fantastic tool for categorising visual ideas, particularly for those in the creative industry. Again, teams can collaborate and share ideas in one place for how campaigns could look, logo and branding idea, office interiors and more… it will surprise you how useful and inspiring this tool can be.

10. Dropbox

Lastly is Dropbox, which many of you will be familiar with for online storage. We use it to streamline our business in two ways – firstly, it syncs between our main office server to some laptops and my home computer, making documents easily retrievable. Secondly, and most importantly it allows us to share large documents and folders with clients. Some clients still use WeTransfer, Zip folders in emails or USB sticks (thankfully not CD-roms anymore!) but the beauty of Dropbox is in its syncing – updates can be made quickly and any edits notified without re-sending.

Integrating the apps above into our own web design agency has been very successful for us, in fact, it has recently given us the time to create our first in-house interactive resource for children called My Transfer Test, a project which we have been passionate about creating for some time.

We hope you find these recommended apps useful and would encourage you to investigate at least a few, as most are inexpensive and come with free trials to explore.